hopelessness. where did she go? who did she see? i just want to know what happened to my sister. ♪ ♪ a young mother is missing in a case gone cold. >> it was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. >> then detectives had an a-ha moment, to solve the case, they would turn to something you probably use every day. facebook. >> why don't you establish a facebook account? i thought that could actually accomplish a great deal. >> and that's when everything started to change. >> something happened to her. >> in court you'll see it all come pouring out. a hidden crime and a son's

heart-pounding moment. >> this is a horrible crime. >> i'm glad we know the truth. >> what were the secrets in the mist? also tonight, they were high school sweethearts. >> we both expected to spend the rest of our lives together, but when she was murdered sympathy turned to suspicion. his palm print was on the murder weapon. >> no question it was his. >> but the mystery was just beginning because -- >> it was some other male. >> as the town chooses up sides and families fight for justice, startling new developments in a shocking murder. >> when you've got something that was this bad. >> somebody's got to pay. >> somebody has to pay. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." tonight, two women, two stories, two keith morrison mysteries. first, what happened to the beauty queen?

♪ ♪ ♪ >> look at her. look at the young woman in the heart of our story. the one with the voice that soared over the mighty ozarks. ♪ ♪ >> you can see how lovely she is, the young beauty queen. can you see her vulnerability? by now your first impression is probably locked in. it's very unlikely to change and certainly that's how it was in russellville, arkansas. a town where a first impression hardened like a patch of serjts about her and also for worse, about the young man accused of killing her. >> the boyfriend who found the body. >> the boyfriend who found the body. >> first impressions die hard, including first impressions of murder and seven years later in this small southern town, we have to ask, can they ever change? of course, that question is quite obvious now to kevin jones, but seven years ago he

didn't give a fig whom he impressed or didn't. all he knew was this, he was going places. he was from a good family, lived near a wonderful city called russellville and was well liked. oh, and was adored by one girl in particular, his high school sweetheart nona dirksmeyer. so she was kind of like a soulmate, i suppose. >> i was closer to her than anybody else. >> he was going marry her some day. she was, after all, about the prettiest girl in town. local beauty pageant judges were wowed by her looks and poise and had already crowned her as such, but here's another truth her boyfriend came to realize. beauty really isn't everything. >> oh, sorry! >> nona was a sometimes troubled girl, given to bouts of emotional turmoil. her mother was grateful to kevin for making her daughter happy.

>> kevin was really interested in helping nona get through some of these hard times she was having. he seemed to be a really caring person. >> he even brought nona into his own family. his wife janice, dad hirem treated her as one of their own. >> she was not a girlfriend or whatever. she was a -- she was our family. >> but it was time for kevin to go off to college. she and nona stayed in touch and in love through a wireless world of late-night cell chats, texts and emoticons. when he didn't respond promptly she'd wag her finger at him. >> she would send me text messages saying are you still alive, sarcastically, trying to get my attention. >> which is why he was so taken aback that day a little before christmas in 2005. it was december 15th, nona uncharacteristically hadn't reached out to him or answered him since morning.

at one point he turned her old taunt back on her texting you alive? even then she didn't respond. this was not like nona. >> in four and a half years we had made a pattern and that's what we did every day and if that pattern's broken it just kind of raised a red flag in my head, why is she not responding. >> were you worried? >> i was concerned. >> who knows why things work out the way they do? on that particular night kevin was supposed to drive his mom janice to a christmas party. she remembers being in the car with him. >> and i said you know, well, you know, there are lots of reasons why she might not be answering her phone. maybe her plans changed. >> by now kevin could think of nothing else. he called his buddy ryan who delivered pizza near nona's apartment and asked him to check on her and ryan called back with something eerie. nona's car was in the lot. her house lights were on, but she wasn't answering the door.

>> i said okay, well i'm going to come over there. >> they pulled up to nona's front door. ryan was still there and kevin joined him. >> ryan and i knocked and knocked and rang the doorbell and nobody came and we started to get a little frantic. >> so the two men ran around the condo to nona's back door. kevin says he rushed up to the sliding glass door without taking a moment to look inside. >> so when i was grabbing the handle ryan touched me and he said do you not see her and i looked at him and he said dude, there she is and she was laying in her front room. >> nona wasn't moving. kevin threw open the unlocked door and rushed inside. >> ryan at one point let my mom in the front door. they called 911 pretty soon after that. >> her name is nona dirksmeyer. >> nona dirksmeyer? >> i, uh, straddled her

midsection, my knees were on the ground above her midsection. >> he tried cpr, but she wasn't breathing. in her eyes, usually so luminous there was no light. there was nothing at all. >> and i -- i talked to her, and i just prayed that everything was going to be okay until the ems got there. >> soon the little apartment was overwhelmed by paramedics and police. it wasn't long before anfficer took kevin aside. janice listened as her son's voice suddenly rose above the chaos. >> then i heard him cry out. >> a howl? >> yeah. that's what it was, and then he asked them if she was dead and they affirmed that yes, she was. >> nona was gone. nothing kevin could do about it, and as he tried to absorb the enormity of what had happened, he heard the policeman ask, could he come downtown, please? they had a few questions about

what happened to nona. >> did kevin know what happened? police seemed to think so. what started as a few questions turned into an hours-long interrogation and watch what happened when police weren't asking questions. >> oh, my god. please tell me.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ in pictures nona dirksmeyer forever radiates promise and beauty, but there is something ugly that lives on, too. her death, and the way she was so brutally taken. nona's mother carol knew it was bad the moment she arrived that night to see police at nona's apartment. >> i told him i wanted to see my baby and of course, they said you can't.

so they had the crime scene tape up and everything. >> the police told carol it was horribly obvious. nona had been murdered, but they were on the case, they told her. in fact, they were already trying to break down nona's last moments on earth. >> when did you last speak with her? >> at 1:00 last night. i called her from my house phone. >> questioning the man who may have known her best. >> . >> and kevin jones seemed eager to help the police figure out who killed his girlfriend. he readily agreed to go to the station that night to answer a few routine questions. >> as kevin careened from what looked like disbelief to grief. anger, and back again.

a few questions turned into many. did you have a key to the apartment? >> yeah. >> and were pointed. did you hurt her? >> i promise you. i would never -- i would -- i would kill myself before i hurt her. >> they would leave me alone in the room. they would ask me questions. >> oh, my god. what am i going to do? >> after a while the police told kevin he could go home. they had other people to talk to, young men nona had been seeing while kevin was away at college, but it wasn't long before the detectives determined the alibis for those other men checked out and six days later as he prepared to say good-bye to nona at the funeral home, police asked him to come back to the police station. >> can i get a drink of water or something? >> you bet. >> after 20 minutes' worth of questions they asked if i'd take a polygraph test. >> what did you say?

>> i said sure. >> so they strapped him up and ran through the innocuous questions and then. >> did you cause the death of nona dirksmeyer? >> and then they went out and analyzed it, came back and said what? >> the man who gave it to me said he had never seen anybody fail the test worse in his 20-some odd years. >> there's no doubt in my mind that you killed her. >> the murder of the beauty queen was very big news in russellville, and given the nature of the crime and the victim so young, pretty and vulnerable, the pressure to solve it from the public and the press was quite intense. so imagine how it was for the lead detective mark frost given that this was his very first homicide case. >> though as he talked to kevin, ross sound like a veteran who had seen it all and was disgusted. >> you did this.

>> no, and i'm telling you you're dead [ bleep ] wrong. >> you killed her. point-blank. >> no, i'm telling you right here. >> at this point it wasn't a questioning. it was more of them yelling at me telling me they knew that i did it. >> the police didn't arrest kevin that night. here's what they did instead. they told nona's mother that the young man she thought would be her son-in-law one day was, in fact, her daughter's killer. >> the first thing that i was told was that he was a sociopath with a narcissistic personality. >> nona had been stabbed repeatedly around the neck and chest and bashed on the head. the medical examiner said that was what killed nona. the police told carol this had to be a very personal attack, not something a stranger could have done, but something kevin could have. now carol had two shocks to absorb. >> i knew in my heart it was someone this that she knew. she would never let in the apartment that she didn't know.

>> now kevin's horrifying discovery was subjected to a dark and troubling spin. detective mark frost said that to him that the crime scene out there looked staged. and a week later there was a press conference at which the police told the russellville public don't worry, we know who committed this crime. >> we have conclusively cleared all but one of these people. >> police didn't mention the suspect's name just then, but it wasn't long before everyone in russellville knew perfectly well that it was kevin jones. >> this is what appeared in the russellville courier three months after nona's murder. nona's killer remains free and russellville police department has requested formal charges against one suspect. hirem jones is kevin's father. >> they tried, convicted kevin within the 90 days that it happened. if you were a stranger walking in a coffee shop in russellville and you read that, what would you think?

>> it bothered kevin's mother something awful when bumper stickers justice for nona started cropping up. after all, she loved nona, too. >> the assumption that i formed, and i think many people formed, was that justice for nona meant -- >> convict kevin. >> convict kevin. >> topping our news. police make an arrest in the murder of a 19-year-old arkansas beauty queen. >> on march 31, 2006, not long after that courier article police finally did announce the arrest of kevin jones for the murder of nona dirksmeyer. whether or not kevin was convicted in the court of public opinion was now apparently irrelevant. he was about to stand trial, quite possibly be convicted when it really mattered, a court of law. coming up, a palm print in blood on the lamp used to kill nona. guess who's? >> no question it was his. no question it was his.

>> but on another key piece of evidence. >> the dna was some other male. >> when "dateline" continues. it's the kmart semi-annual furniture sale! dressers, 39.99 each! this microfiber futon, 99.99 and a pine dining nook just 199.99! sale ends saturday. don't miss out! at kmart

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♪ ♪ ♪ a small southern city. a local beauty queen murdered, her boyfriend accused of the crime. it was hard to be in russellville in 2007 and not be steeped in the story of nona dirksmeyer and kevin jones. >> this case probably had more

statewide publicity than any criminal case in many, many years, perhaps ever, in arkansas. yet, of course, kevin had a right to a fair trial and impartial jury. his lawyers argued that would be impossible in a place like russellville. so the venue was changed to the nearby city of o zarbing. >> the media spotlight is on a small northwest arkansas town of ozark. >> to the prosecutor the trial's location mattered little. what did matter was the evidence. and he believed there was enough of that to put kevin jones away for years. jeff phillips was the deputy prosecutor. >> we believed, and i believe that the morning of her death kevin jones came in unexpectedly. >> when the trial opened in 2007 the prosecutor told the jury the reason for this crime was as old as the bible itself. jealous rage. kevin jones had walked into his lover's apartment that day in

december 2005 and found within it a cheating heart. >> while there, discovered either a text message from another person and/or a used condom wrapper on a counter and things escalated from there. escalated out of control. >> and then the prosecutor said with jones repeatedly stabbing nona and crushing her skull with a lamp base and left his palm print on the lamp's bulb. >> no question it was his? >> no question it was his. the defense didn't even make an issue that it was his. >> but it's what kevin did next said the prosecutor that showed how calculating he could be. kevin left nona's apartment, he said, with her dead on the floor and then waited through the afternoon until hours later when he could come back with his mother and friend to find nona's body. >> in my opinion, an intentional attempt to be -- to have someone else find her, but him.

>> trying to make himself look innocent. if that wasn't telling enough, the prosecutor said then surely this was. >> kevin jones' police interview, right there, the prosecutor told the jury was kevin's capacity for violence in full view, sitting and listening to this, kevin's father worried how easy it might be for jurors to convict his son. >> it was just a nightmare. >> yet kevin's parents never waivered in their belief that their son was just as innocent as he told the police he was. they even bet the family farm on it. >> we put it up as collateral. >> and used the money to buy their son the best defense they could and he needed it. kevin's lawyers knew their client had become the local poster boy for evil. >> when you've got something that was this -- this serious that is this bad, this girl was brutally murdered. >> somebody's got to pay. >> somebody has to pay.

>> somebody, but not kevin said attorney michael robbins. they sent the readout of the polygraph to an independent expert who reported that the questions seemed designed to make sure kevin failed. the rest of the state's evidence, said the defense, didn't wash either. the bloody palm print on the light bulb of the lamp, the murder weapon, it was kevin's print and no wonder it was. kevin was frantically trying to save his girlfriend's life. so, of course, he could have touched the light bulb. >> it is a totally innocent situation. the blood got on the light bulb at the time the body was discovered. >> what hewhen he's trying to revive her somehow and touched the light bulb. >> the emt said the lamp was within a foot of the body. >> more disturbing, the evidence not collected by the police. said the defense, first-time homicide detective mark frost and the other officers in the

department mucked up the case royally. >> the only area that was fingerprinted was the area around the body that there was blood near the front door, was there blood on the venetian blinds, the empty condom wrapper a short distance from the body. the police go upstairs to see if that's been flushed. do not fingerprint the commode, don't dna that, don't dna anything up there. >> in fact, the defense did its own dna testing on that condom wrapper. by the prosecution's account it was a key piece of evidence, the thing that likely sent kevin off on this murderous rage, but think about it, if kevin actually saw the condom wrapper he would have picked it up and would have left his own dna on it, but. >> we sent the prophylactic wrapper off and they found the dna.

the dna was some other male's. >> someone else's dna, not kevin's and probably said the defense that condom was used by the killer, but who? neither defense nor prosecution had an answer for that. the dna didn't match anybody in the database, and kevin's lawyers did have this. an alibi for their client. kevin's grandmother told the court he couldn't have killed nona because he was with her miles away in the town of dover around the time the state said nona died. >> she is a genuine, down to earth, very level-headed person. she was an incredible witness on the stand. >> but there was one compelling piece of evidence in the prosecution's case said the defense and they just wanted jurors to see more of it, that police video of kevin. >> she didn't deserve this. she deserved a life. >> the defense had jurors watch all of it.

it was betting this image should convince jurors they should change what may have been that first impression and decide kevin wasn't the killer the prosecutors had painted, but a grief-stricken young man who was innocent. so, what to believe? in the courthouse, the jury wrestled with the verdict. 50 miles down the road in russellville, the town cried for justice. if that meant conviction, well, so be it. coming up, would jurors convict kevin jones of murder and investigators think they now know whose dna was on that key piece of evidence. >> i said it matches, doesn't it? he said it matches gary dunn. >> who was gary dunn and what, if anything, did he have to do with nona's murder? and coming up later, another "dateline" mystery. >> something happened to her. >> a young mom missing for years. now could facebook hold the

answer? >> it's kind of a place that we say here i am. and it's also a place where you can find people. "secrets in the mist." ♪ you gotta hit a wall to see the light ♪

♪ ♪ sometimes you gotta break it down to make it right ♪ ♪ ♪ light up my life, light up my room ♪ ♪ singin rat tat tat and a bang bang boom ♪ ♪ you gotta tear it down ♪ sometimes you gotta tear it all down ♪ ♪ to make it beautiful ♪ ♪ you gotta tear it down

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♪ kevin jones sat in the do you remember and watched the fight for his life swirl around him and felt in that uncomfortable chair the withering stares at the jury. >> they can all look at you and if you do one thing wrong that they deem is wrong that might sway them the opposite way. >> one facial expression? >> one click of a pen. one bite off of your fingernail. you never know how people are

going take things that you do. >> he had every reason to worry. later, the jurors would recall how the images of this crime haunted them. >> blood all over him in the pictures. >> the palm print in her blood. >> but to the juror, the evidence or the lack of it looked bad for police, too. >> the glass door, for example, where the perpetrator went out was not fingerprinted inside or out. the kitchen floor would have been excellent for footprints. he obviously walked across there. no prints were taken. >> they said that kind of sloppiness made them wonder, what else did the police miss? what other suspects? the police claimed that they had checked the alibis of all these potential suspects. >> as well as they gathered evidence? >> but what really stuck with them was kevin sitting in the police interrogation room looking to them genuinely

distraught. >> i felt bad inside that i was watching him in this little cubicle of a room. >> unbalanced, they agreed. the evidence pointed more to innocence than guilty. >> after eight hours they had their verdict not guilty. kevin was free. enormously relieved, of course, but also furious at detective mark frost and the russellville police. >> it frustrates me and angers me that the police didn't care enough to do their jobs the right way, and it frustrates me that they didn't find the person who did this. >> but nona's mother carol believed her daughter's old boyfriend had quite possibly just gotten away with murder. >> if you think somebody else did it why aren't you out there trying to find him? >> who can beget the mother's bitter challenge? >> they stood here on the steps of the courthouse and they vowed they would do whatever it took to find nona's killer.

kevin's father hirem financially wind out by the cost of all this asked his son's legal team for one more favor. >> i said, this is what i've got. i don't know how much i need. i don't know how i can pay you, but i need this. >> the lawyers agreed to help. they asked an investigator, this man, to keep working the case. his name is tom steffi, a part-time detective and full-time preacher. >> what an odd combination, then. >> i used to say it's the ultimate good guy. >> and right away, steffi knew there was a key piece of evidence that demanded a closer look. that condom wrapper found in nona's apartment. it held somebody's dna, but whose? steffi wondered if police cleared those male friends and neighbors of nona too quickly in the early days of the investigation. >> do they have a valid alibi because either i'm missing something or, you know, and so

i -- i began to feel like some of those people maybe needed to have their dna compared. >> so kevin's legal team rolled up its sleeves and slacks and went diving through trash belonging to those young men and they got some dna samples, but none matched the dna on the condom wrapper. steffi, the policeman and preacher needed a lead. you could say he needed a miracle, and wouldn't you know he got it? it came in the most mundane way. two months after kevin's acquittal and more than a year after nona's death, steffi's police chief told him to question a suspect in a recent burglary, a man by the name of gary dunn. steffi's eyes widened at that. >> my chief looked at me and i said do you know who he is, and he said yes. he was one of the neighbors to nona dirksmeyer. >> gary dunn, a neighbor of

nona's. he was among that handful of men who had been questioned and cleared by police. steffi knew that dunn certainly would have had the opportunity to kill. his bedroom window looked directly across a small parking lot at nona's bedroom window. now steffi had to get that man's dna. >> how did you do that? >> i asked him for it. >> and he said yes? >> basically. i just asked him if he would be willing to give me his fingerprints and a dna sample. if i can rule them out then we're done. >> but there was a problem. to get that sample tested steffi needed the cash-strapped jones family to pay for it. at first kevin's mother hesitated the test would cost about $600, but the investigator insisted. >> what did she say? >> eventually she just kind of said something like, oh, shucks, it's just money. so she paid for it, and what a good investment it turned out to

be because weeks later steffi got a call from one of kevin's lawyers. the dna tests were back and wouldn't you know? >> i said it matches, doesn't it? >> he said it matches gary dunn. the results strongly suggested the dna on the condom wrapper was left by nona's neighbor, gary dunn. now steffi needed to check out dunn's alibi for the day nona was killed. dunn had told police he was out shopping with his mother around the time of the murder, december 15th. that was his alibi. so steffi went looking for copies of receipts from those stores to back up the alibi. >> so this is the store where suppose lead gary dunn came to do some shopping. >> this was one of the places we had to check out in his alibi and the store had boxes and boxes of records of receipts. it was the old-fashioned sign the slip kind of receipt. >> he's not kidding. boxes going back years. steffi rooted through piles of

forgotten paper. >> how many boxes did you go through? >> i have no idea. >> hours and hours? >> i think i have tried to forget that. >> and just when steffi thought it was all a wasted effort, he pulled out this scrap. >> did you find it? i found it. i found it. >> there it was, a receipt that showed gary and his mom were out shopping all right on december 13th, not the 15th when they said they were when nona was murdered. >> it wasn't the same day at all. >> no. >> in fact, none of the receipts from the stores where dunn and his mother said they were shopping gave him an alibi for the time nona was killed. police and the prosecutor didn't mention that at kevin's trial, but now a new prosecutor was on the case and he found the dna results and faulty alibi compelling and one year after kevin's acquittal gary dunn was charged with murder. many people in russellville

struggled to know what to think. their first impression was that kevin jones murdered nona, and they believed this latest arrestee was the real killer and could the state of arkansas prove it. >> coming up, gary dunn was the one on trial, so why did it seem as if kevin jones was as well? >> first thing you hit with is your son is on trial again even though he's not on trial, he is. when "dateline" continues. shard in data dressed as pixels. a billion roaming photojournalists... uploading the human experience. and it is spectacular. so why would you cap that? my iphone 5 can see every point of view... every panorama, the entire gallery of humanity. i need to upload all of me. i need, no, i have the right to be unlimited. only sprint offers truly unlimited data... for iphone 5.

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♪ ♪ ♪ kevin jones' parents had won and lost. they had won freedom for their woman they considered a daughter. they wanted justice so badly for nona. dunn's trial opened in april 2010. hirem jones listened as the state which had already tried his son now argued that dunn was a sexually violent man who had been stalking the young beauty queen whose bedroom window he could see across the parking lot. his own wife testified he was

violent in bed with her and that weeks before nona's death she caught him hanging around nona's front door in the middle of the night. so, said the prosecutor, the jury could be sure dunn killed nona after entering her apartment with the intent of forcing a sexual encounter and the condom wrapper proved it. >> this condom wrapper that was found that had the dna on it, that did not have kevin's dna on it, that had his dna on it. >> so dna evidence, a disturbing background, an alibi that turned out to be no alibi at all, and sure, it was hard to see how dunn's public defenders bill james and jeff rosensweig could fight against their client's lies and dna and that's exactly what they did and with gusto. >> what you're saying is the state was simply wrong. >> what's more, they told juror, they could prove it. for starters, the state wasn't being honest about the dna on that condom wrapper.

it was only a mixed partial max to gary dunn, they said. >> any thousand, million, billions of people are also not excueded. >> let me ask you then, is what you're saying gary dunn didn't touch that condom wrapper. >> he was never anywhere near that condom wrapper. >> he was across the parking lot in his apartment. >> minding his own business when nona was murdered. it's true, the defense said, dunn was not out shopping as he first claimed to police. he had simply gotten his days mixed up. it was, after all, two weeks after the crime when the detectives asked him for a detailed alibi. >> they asked him for receipts. they gave it to the police department. >> it wasn't for that day. he cooperated in full. he gave them what they asked him to do. >> the defense told jurors it wasn't gary dunn's alibi they should question anyway. if anything the lawyers said, they should take a look at

someone else for nona's murder. her old boyfriend, and at that moment hirem realized with dread just where this trial was headi heading. >> the first thing you get hit with is your son is on trial again, each though he's not on trial again, he is. that's part of the defense that they use. >> how right he was. dunn's attorneys tried to persuade the jury that kevin jones, the first suspect in the case had one shaky story after another. the 911 call where kevin's mother is crying. >> her name is nona dirksmeyer. >> the defense said janice jones and kevin's friend gave police conflicting details of how they came upon nona's body and what they were doing to save her. >> it is a lie. they're all three lying. >> kevin's lying and his mother is lying. >> absolutely. without question. >> in fact, the defense attorneys tried to claim, you

couldn't keep up with the jones' and all their lies. even kevin's grandmother who said she was with kevin in another town the morning of nona's death and couldn't be trusted. >> kevin's grandmother knows he murdered nona. >> i don't know if they know, but they're covering for him. he couldn't explain one thing away, that bloody palm print in nona's apartment. it was his and not gary dunn's. did it work? yes, it did. after three days of deliberations, the jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial, but the prosecutor wasn't giving up. he promptly refiled murder charges and gary dunn's second trial began in 2011. >> gary dunn being tried a second time after his first trial ended in a hung jury. >> and this time the judge allowed the prosecutor to reveal a very dark fact about gary dunn.

he was a convicted felon before nona was murdered. jurors heard from a woman named kelly joe fitsharris who happened to have the grave misfortune of jogging past gary dunn in the wrong day on the wrong place in 2002. >> it's a popular trail for runners, but very isolated. she came running by herself in that direction and she saw a man sitting here on this bench and as she ran up the trail this way she heard footsteps behind her and turned around and the man had a huge stick. he hit her over the head with it and knocked her down and hit her repeatedly and she realized the only way for her to escape was to where iiiggle free. she ran up as fast as she could, calling for help pretending there was somebody nearby. the police came later and they found gary dunn hiding in the water. they arrested him and he spent 18 months in jail. then newly out on parole he

moved into nona's apartment complex, set up house directly across the parking lot months before nona's death. dunn's lawyers admitted it was a blow to their defense. >> so we had to deal with it and make it, you know, not make it any worse. do no harm. >> or was it already done? this time the jurors knew the man was not only prone to violence, he was a convicted criminal. so for a town's first impression that kevin jones murder the beauty queen finally be undone? coming up, the verdict. will there be justice for nona and her family? >> i knew that they were waiting to see if there would be closure. >> and coming up in our next hour, another emotional courtroom drama. >> how hard is it for you to be here today? >> very. >> after years of will silence, a son reveals a secret about the mysterious disappearance of his mom. >> it's a real conflict for me. i was thinking, zip your mouth.

>> it was a case gone cold until detectives turned to facebook. >> something happened to her. >> could facebook help solve this crime? an entire family must face the truth. >> i was shocked and it was out of the blue. >> keith morrison returns with mystery number two, "secrets in the mist." ...with a store full of ways to get it done. we can all throw on our work clothes... ...and throw out any doubt. because right now's the time to take those rooms from... ..."think i can do this?" to... ..."let me show you what i just did." more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. outsmart your budget with glass and stone mosaic tile, just $6.98 a square foot.

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this was the third time the state of arkansas had tried someone for the murder of nona dirksmeyer and the second time gary dunn stood accused, but when they started to deliberate his jurors weren't thinking about second or third. they were thinking the first. kevin jones, the first suspect in this case. >> were you -- any of you suspicious that maybe it was actually kevin who did this? >> i believe the whole jury thought in the beginning that it was, you know, high probability

that it was kevin because the defense did a really good job of getting us to believe it could be kevin. >> once again, dunn's defense had retried kevin jones for the murder of nona dirksmeyer. the jurors eventually came to a sort of peace with that. this is gary's trial and we need to look at the evidence that's against or for him. >> and once they did they were troubled. on the witness stand that jogger described just how brutally dunn attacked her, just as nona had been attacked. >> that was really a big factor in my thinking, you know, about whether he was guilty or innocent and tied into everything else because that's what happened to nona, all those things. >> it showed dunn was a brutal man who was also a convicted felon when nona died. he even lied about where he'd been that day. >> he don't have no alibi and that looks really bad. it looks really bad. ♪ ♪ >> he also talked about the dna on the condom wrapper found in nona's apartment.

some believe the dna probably did belong to gary dunn, but that made them wonder, too. >> this guy was supposedly so careful to not leave no other dna or no other fingerprints in this whole crime scene then you would think he would have been smart enough to take the condom wrapper with him. so there it was. dna evidence against dunn, interesting, if perhaps not proof. circumstantial evidence which was compelling. they took a poll, guilty or not? several poll, actually. and then on the last go round they knew they were finished. they went back to the courtroom and looked at nona's family. >> coming up and being in front of her parents was the hardest thing for me. i was very -- it made me very sad because i knew that they were waiting to see if there would be closure. we couldn't do it. we couldn't give them closure.

>> once again, the case of arkansas versus gary dunn ended in a hung jury. >> the most powerful reason for that, that first impression among many here in russellville that it was kevin jones who killed nona dirksmeyer. the state has not said yet whether or not it will file charges against gary dunn for a third time, but many here frankly doubt that they will. as for kevin, you may be surprised to hear he's due back in court. not for anything he did, but for the damage he says was done to him. by the police. >> they just looked at me and said he's the one that did it. >> kevin jones always believed the police zeroed in on him as the suspect in nona's death and never seriously considered anyone else. >> you did this! >> you did it. >> i'm telling you you are dead [ bleep ] wrong i did this. >> he's suing mark frost, the detective who built the case

against him and other, too, for withholing evidence. through his lawyer, frost denies making mistakes and withholding evidence. neither the russellville police department would comment on the investigation. so once again, kevin jones will be headed back to court, but kevin is moving on. he's married now, nose deep in books. for reasons you may understand he wants to become a criminal defense attorney and thus help other people correct poisonous first impressions and get this, he hopes to practice in of all places, russellville. >> right back in the place where you were almost convicted of murder. >> it's also the place that i grew up and the place where my family is from. >> besides, he says, he's made peace with the one person whose opinion really does matter to him. nona's mother. she no longer believes kevin killed her daughter. in fact, she says, she loves kevin. as for others who are more cynical, he tries not to dwell

on what they think or whisper about him and the girl he once loved. nona dirksmeyer, the songbird, the beauty queen. the girl for whom justice is denied. >> when the young mother at the center of our next story disappeared, the internet was still in its infancy. police didn't have today's high-speed tools to track people who went missing. decades later, a cold case investigator hit on an idea. could facebook help find out what happened to the woman who vanished so long ago and force her son to face the truth? here again is keith morrison. ♪ ♪ ♪ january, point vicente, california, the wet, gray, morning cold had settled in to stay. ♪ ♪ >> at noon, a police boat sets

off in the pea soup fog, a hail mary pass apparently, a slim chance to find the truth at last, but why out there? why after all these lost 30 years? maybe some cases are destined to stay cold, easier that way, before they came along with their wild ideas about murder and facebook of all things and now this. their doomed errand into the fog. ♪ ♪ >> her name was carol dean meyer, though she was carol lubahn when all of this happened back in march 1991, the night of the slamming doors, the harsh words and the car roaring away and it's an old story, anyway. pretty girl gets pregnant at 15, marries the guy, pretty soon she's a 20-something with two kids and a hankering to live, really live for a change and this particular pretty girl? >> she was fun.

she was outgoing. she had a lot of friends. ♪ ♪ >> she had these two sisters. terri was the younger one, gail, the older. >> we were very close and made each other laugh all of the time. but carol lubahn wasn't laughing at the end of march '81. for one thing, she wanted to be somebody, her own somebody. >> i know that carol wanted to complete school and further her career and that's when she went back to study architecture. >> sure, her husband was a nice kid and she loved him once with all of the intensity of first love. the handsome high school football player who would hang around on her front porch. >> his friends would come over, and i thought that was kind of cool. all of his football athlete friends. mike stepped up and married her after the baby was born. >> he was a good father. he just seemed to really enjoy his kids. >> enjoyed carol's family, too.

especially her dad milt. >> so mike became kind of like his son. milt brought young mike into the family house painting business. >> he just took to him immediately and everybody felt that way about mike, his friends, everybody. he was always a very likable person. >> friendly, loyal, but not exactly ambitious. he didn't seem to mind at all settling down to a modest existence and them and the two kids cramped up in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in torrance, but carol did mind it very much. >> i think she may have outgrown him somewhat. >> she had a secret affair by then, maybe more than one. she got herself a cute little red car, an audi fox and ordered personalizedplace plates and we did this one to look just like it and quite often she'd get in her little car alone and go roaring off to school or to meat markets like the local red onion was back then.

>> i know she was going to the red know on. i never went there with her so i don't know what she was like. >> she had another corner of her life that you weren't a part of. >> yeah. >> and then that night in march kids off to bed, their son mike, jr., was just a boy, 10 years old. >> i was in bed. i had just got a new stereo for my 10th birthday and i was listening to the headphones. ♪ ♪ >> from his bed he could see something happening out in the hallway. i remember them getting into an argument which was unusual. >> because they just didn't. >> not they knew of. i remember her marching past and going out the front door and slamming the door. >> you heard the slam? >> i heard the slam in the front door. i know that. >> and the next morning -- >> we got up and she wasn't there. mike senior told carol's dad that carol had demanded he sign papers to sell their house and he didn't want to and she got mad and they argued and when they woke with up in the morning

she was just gone. >> so we just assumed she needed to get away for a few days, but as the days went on we got extremely worried. >> nearly a week after carol departed her red audi fox showed up in the parking lot of the red onion dusty, as if it had been there a while. >> i remember being upset about it. she was gone and i didn't know where she went. >> they drove around looking for her, went to bars. carol's picture in hand and -- >> nobody had seen her. >> what feeling was that? >> hopelessness. you know? where did she go? who did she see? >> the torrance police department opened a file, but they couldn't answer any of the questions, had she finally gotten fed up with mike and started a new life somewhere else or had she been in an accident or something worse? more than a week after carol disappeared there was still absolutely no sign of her and then something strange happened

here at the house, something very strange. could it be that carol, unbeknownst to anyone sneaked back in here when nobody else was around? ♪ ♪ >> imagine what it was like back then in that little house? mike, thinking things over. on a hunch he placed tape on carol's dresser drawers, a little trap. one day he took the kids to universal studios and sure enough when they returned he noticed the tape was broken and moved as well. some of carol's clothes went missing along with some money from a place no burglar would know to look, under the butter dish in the refrigerator where mike said he and carol kept $100 in emergency cash and now $60 was missing. just like carol said her sister gail. >> she would not have taken all of it. that was in carol's personality

to just be very fair. >> it made sense then? >> uh-huh. >> and then there were those mysterious phone calls. >> we would get the calls on special days, her birthday, my birthday, my grandmother would get calls. >> and just silence on the other end. >> yeah. >> what did you do. we'd say carol, we love you. we hope you come back. we felt like she was finding a happier life somewhere. >> and understood that to make that successful she might have to make a dcomplete and total break. >> yeah. almost three months after carol vanished the dakotaives put it in the inactive file. in the report he wrote no foul play involved. >> remember thinking about her all of the time and i used to play records over and over that she liked and just thinking where is she? when is she coming back? >> eventually mike started dating a 19-year-old named carrie and brought her into the fold. >> we were happy that mike was going with life. >> and so they did all go on

with life, and many years went by. ♪ ♪ >> until the morning in a whole new millennium when the torrance detective happened on the case of the missing young mother and somewhere in the back of his brain, a little light turned on, and i just had a hunch and it didn't sound right to me. coming up, doubts about carol's disappearance grow and others also would have suspicions about what really happened. later, they turn to a surprising source to help solve the mystery. >> why don't you establish a facebook account for carol? would they find the answer on facebook? alec, for this mission i upgraded your smart phone. ♪ right. but the most important feature of all is... the capital one purchase eraser. i can redeem the double miles i earned with my venture card to erase recent travel purchases. and with a few clicks, this mission never happened.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ in march of 1981 carol lubahn, a lovely young mother of two known to be unhappy in her marriage suddenly vanished and departed for parts unknown leaving behind not just her husband mike, but her son, mike, jr., then just ten years old. >> it never felt my mother abandoned me. i was never upset with her. >> really? >> i never thought she did. i don't know why. i was just upset she wasn't there. i thought she would be there to show up at a graduation or something. i always thought, wow, she could

show up. she could show up. >> but she didn't, and at family gatherings as the years went by, thanksgiving, christmases, that awful question why would she leave them? remained the unmentionable elephant in the room. >> when it came to my family, i think they didn't talk about it because they figured it would upset me or my sister so they just kind of like, it was a taboo subject and didn't really talk about her. >> my family is pretty closed to talking about heavy things so something like that rarely talked about. >> that was the ultimate heavy thing. >> yeah. >> could you see it in your mother's eyes or your father's? >> in my father's for sure. >> what would you see there? >> a lot of emotion. a lot of sadness. i'm going to cry thinking about it. ♪ ♪ >> in 1987al northwest six years after carol vanished the torrance police department

revisited the case and sime to have altered mike's memory a little. a few more details had come back to him. remember soon after carol vanished mike said they argued. he went to sleep alone, and woke up in the morning early and she was gone? >> but in 1987 he remembered they argued, went to bed together, she got up at 5:30 in the morning to go to the bathroom, he woke up and drifted back to sleep and woke up to the sound of a car engine starting and driving away. odd. but memories do play tricks. it never seemed terribly significant so the case went back to the file and got colder. mike took over the house painting business from carol's dad, and went on to marry carrie and have two more sons. gail and terri raised their own families and it was having babies that started to change terri's way of looking at her

sister's disappearance. >> as unhappy as you might be in your life, you might leave your husband. you'd take your kids with you. >> and so you began to suspect that she wouldn't leave her children what did that mean to you? >> that something happened to her. >> in 1996, 15 years since they'd heard from carol the police came around again. this time they scanned the lubahn's backyard with ground-penetrating radar, even dug up the ground. didn't find a thing. funny thing, though, about four months later the local paper "the daily breeze" did a little story and interviewed mike and this time his memory was slightly different. he remembered that on that terrible morning when carol left he heard the garage door go up before she drove away. a little detail, though nothing profoundly different and no evidence whatsoever of any crime.

the case went away again and then one day in 2002 a detective named walt delseen was rummaging through some cabinets behind his sergeant's desk. >> i was just being nosy. i thought, what is this? >> it was the carol lubahn case folder. at that point more than 20 years old and cold as they come. >> i never even heard of it before and i go, this is interesting. i wonder if this lady is still missing. >> of course, she was. so again, he read through the police reports. couldn't help, but notice the subtle changes in mike's story. >> and i thought that was kind of strange because i wouldn't think you would forget the last time you saw your wife. >> so he went to see carol's parents her mom melba, her dad milt. >> and he looked up at me and he was starting to cry, and i said, milt, are you okay? and he said -- he goes. i am just so happy i can't believe you guys are still interested in this case. >> how much did that have to do

with you driving ahead in this case, with that conversation? >> a lot. i'm the father of three daughters as well. what if this was my middle daughter? >> milt died one month later never knowing what happened to his beautiful middle daughter, but when terri went to her father's funeral and saw mike there a private thought ate at her. mike must know something. >> i didn't say anything. i tried to keep away. he was, of course, paying his respects to my family, but i couldn't carry on a conversation with him. >> meanwhile, walt delseen had become a little obsessed. he had many other more pressing cases, but something kept pulling him back to carol lubahn. >> i actually would shove some of my work away and i got in a little trouble for that sometimes. >> for years, detective delseen chipped away until finally in 2010, eight years after he found that musty old blue file he decided to pay a surprise visit

to mike lubahn, his colleagues thought he was a bit nuts. >> there were those that thought what? do you think he's going to admit it to you. well, i've played enough sports in my time and i know you're not going to get anywhere in you don't try. you never know. >> detective delsigne. >> what story would mike tell this time? >> coming up, this version was straight out of 007. >> i think i did that james bond thing and put the tape on the door. >> but one detail did ring true. >> she said you make my skin crawl. >> i'll bet you she did say that. >> when "dateline" continues. $16 a month. wha... what were you guys thinking? lucy: i think it should be five cents. charlie: yeah, it should be five cents. employee: we can't do five cents. lucy: it should be five cents. employee: everything can't be five cents.

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♪ ♪ ♪ for eight years torrance police detective walt delsigne worked away at the carol lubahn file drawn by an irresistible not disappear voluntarily, but actual evidence of a crime? just wasn't any.

he went over there to his sanningent. >> he invited us in, but we did catch him unexpectedly, but that was the plan. >> was mike upset or thrown off? >> not at all. very nice like i anticipated he would be because i now heard from everybody from the family how mike is a good guy. so together they went over again the details of that last night back in march '81 and right away mike remembered a little more about the night carol presented him with a real estate contract and a demand they sell their tiny house. >> she came in and did she turn and walk away with it? what happened? >> she said you make my skin crawl. >> i thought, bing, i'll bet you she did say that. so i pushed him some more for more details. >> and the details were, once again, a little different about

when and where he last saw her, for example. it wasn't when he went to bed around 10:00 p.m. as he said on one occasion or 5:30 the next morning as he also said. no, this time mike said he last saw carol about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. in the bathtub. >> i'll see you in the tub. >> and then he said maybe around midnight or 1:00 or 2:00. he heard the garage door go up and he went to the door and actually saw carol's car driving away. >> isey saw taillights. >> and you're sure it was her car? >> also, remember that story about putting tape on the dresser drawers after carol left and then later he found it broken? he didn't remember that now. >> but as he sat here in 2010, he did remember some other traps he'd set even more elaborate.

>> by now detective delsigne was working with his colleague jim wallace and deputy d.a. john lewin. lewin specializes in tackling the most difficult of cold cases. >> do you remember when you saw the results of that interview what you thought? >> yeah. i thought that his memory had grown in areas where it shouldn't and in areas where he should be saying the same story it was different and that's the hallmark of deception. >> sure, but the mind plays tricks. the mind invents things and inserts them into your memory and you believe them as strenuously as if they actually happened. >> that's an interesting theory. i don't think it's supported. memories can be lost, but memories don't increase in

details over the years and they don't increase in different details and that's a sign of what we call a lie. >> his version of what happened from the start made no sense to any of us. >> this is what makes the case. >> why would mike lie? the cold case team it seemed obvious. he killed her that night. she stopped living that night and everything else that doesn't make sense it's all because it's a lie. if you know it's a lie then it all lines up. >> remarkably, mark lubahn continued to talk to them three more times, very friendly, without an attorney and he even let the prosecutor take a crack at him. >> if you were me, if you were in my position tell me what you would think? >> i don't know what you're thinking. >> which is? >> that i did it. >> well, mike, i can tell you. you know, sometimes you know the kind of murder cases we get, we get cases where the husband finds out that his wife is

cheating on him and kills her. so -- so -- >> it has nothing to do with that. >> it had nothing to do with that. >> lewin did. >> when you just look at sentence structure and you look at how people talk and communicate it wasn't about that. what is the it? >> you gave that great significance, didn't you? >> oh, absolutely. >> so they kept at mike, and at one point it seemed to them he was on the verge of confessing. >> listen, why don't you give me a few days or something to think about it. i'll cooperate and i'll come back. >> but when he came back he didn't give them anything and they were right back where they started, suspicion, sure, but no evidence of a crime. no way to even prove carol was dead. that is until detective jim wallace hit on an idea. to use a tool that didn't even exist when carol lubahn fought with her husband on a march

night in 1981. coming up, the long arm of facebook. >> it's a kind of a place where we say here i am. it's also a place where you can find people. the result, a dramatic turn in the case and fresh heartbreak for carol's family. >> another nightmare on top of the first nightmare. ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the deputy d.a. john lewin and the cold case team believed mike lubahn killed his wife carol back in 1981, but they had one big problem. they couldn't prove carol was dead. >> the biggest assumption is going to be how do you know she's not out of the country or across the country or changed her identity. >> kind of an important question

with no answer, and then in january 2011 jim wallace got the flu. lucky break. no, really. >> and i was laying in bed and my wife came in and unfortunately when you work these cases all you talk about is we are a dedicated cold case team is you talk about the case you're working and i'm sure she was tired of hearing it, and she mentioned why don't you establish a facebook account for carol. i thought that could actually accomplish a great deal. >> back in 1981 when facebook, detective wallace knew social media and its potential to connect to millions of people around the globe instantly, it could determine once and for all, he thought, whether carol was alive or dead. >> because all of us know from using facebook that number one, it's kind of a place where we say here i am, and it's also a place where we can find people. >> if carol was still alive someone on facebook or twitter would know something.

>> of course, wallace also knew carol would look vastly different so he found an age progression artist to create an image of what she might look like today and he placed that photo and others like it on facebook and other sites. >> and it turned out it was a great point of contact for me to contact 350 friends and family of carol's and i asked h has anybody seen carol. nobody had seen carol since the night she disappeared. >> and if carol had googled her own name she would find herself at her own website at carol jean lubahn.com and that meant something significant. >> she's not looking for herself. she's dead. >> or a farmer's wife in uruguay who doesn't go on the computer much. >> maybe. >> lots of people are not on facebook and don't check and google things and it doesn't mean that she is dead for sure.

>> in this large, cumulative thing that we're looking at, it's yet another piece that points to the same conclusion. >> if carol was dead, if mike killed her taking the accusation to court would be risky, totally circumstantial, of course, no body, an unclear motive and sympathetic defendant and the prosecutor decided to roll the dice. 30 years after carol lubahn vanished from her family's life, in 2011 mike was arrested for carol's murder. >> when you went to the family and said we're going to charge him, what was their reaction? >> mixed at best. >> mixed? that's a mild word. how about upset? horrified? mystified? in fact, most of carol's family members believe the idea that mike could have murdered carol was just ludicrous. >> well, he was a member of our family and nobody wanted to see him be arrested or him be the

reason or any of that. it's like another nightmare on top of the first nightmare. >> this was a case where i think the family would have been more than happy to believe that carol is still out there somewhere. she's not dead, and their beloved son-in-law is not a killer. >> but of all mike senior's family members, and no one was like his first-born son mike, jr., who followed him into the fleem painting business and worked side by side with him for decades and who had confessed to detectives that like his aunt terri, he, too had doubts about his father. doubts that had taken root shortly after mike senior's second wife left him. >> he talked about my stepmother constantly for years, it was nonstop. >> and why was that so significant to you? because he never talked about my

mother. >> at all? >> never. >> but mike never confronted his father. >> i just knew in the back of my mind that this could be a possibility, and i really honestly, at that time i never wanted my father to go to jail. i just wanted to know, and it was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. >> to get the truth and avoid a trial, prosecutor john lewin was willing to make a deal. >> we had offered him voluntary manslaughter if he gave us carly's body. >> and he turned you down flat. >> he did. repeatedly. >> mike pleaded not guilty. the case was going to trial and if members of carol's own family didn't believe mike did it, what would a jury think? coming up, a father in court and a son on the stand. >> i was really, really stressed out about that. >> and he watches his dad answer this.

>> isn't it true, mr. lubahn that carol lived her last breath in that bathtub when you murdered her? >> when "dateline" continues. he. uh, hey.... i'm bob, we talked at the tax store. i did your taxes. i thou??t you were a tax expert? today, i'm a master plumber. major tax stores advertise for preparers with "no tax experience necessary." at turbotax, you only get answers from cpas, eas or tax attorneys - all real tax experts. ...than h&r block stores and all other major tax stores combined. of course everybody has secrets. in fact ... you are looking at one of my secrets right now. new revlon nearly naked™ makeup covers flaws melting into skin to even out your complexion. so the only one who knows you have makeup on ... is you. dare to be revlon. it's the kmart semi-annual furniture sale! dressers, 39.99 each! this microfiber futon, 99.99

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♪net. it was september 11th of all days, september 11, 2012, 31 years, five months, 12 days after the last known sithe of carol lubahn and an inauspicious day to begin the prosecution of a popular man? could be, but deputy d.a. john lewin went ahead anyway. >> what with i'm going to be able to prove beyond any reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, is that despite the fact that mike lubahn is a decent man, he murdered his wife. >> of course, lewin knew that to prove a murder had occurred he had to show that the victim was, in fact, no longer alive. for that he turned to detective wallace that the facebook and social media presence he'd created for carol had turned up a whole lot of nothing. >> have you been contacted by anybody either by phone, email,

in writing who says, you know what? i've seen carol lubahn after the day she disappeared? >> no. >> though as lewin and his team also let the jury hear, family members like carol's sister gail believed what mike told them, that carol had run off. >> has it been hard for you to accept the possibility that she may be dead? >> well, yes. >> is it made even more difficult by the fact that you care deeply for the defendant? >> yes. >> and younger sister terri, even though she had suspected mike for years -- >> do you still think of mike lubahn senior as a part of your family? >> yes. >> but most anguished of all, mike and carol's son, mike, jr. >> is there anything about the way you remember your mom that

would make you think or made you feel that she would leave you and never come back and never say good-bye? >> no. >> he loved his dad, but also secretly doubted him. something he never revealed until now. >> i was sweating so profusely during that whole trial. he never knew i had these feelings so on the stand publicly i had to basically say, yeah. i'm thinking there are are some weird things about your story, and it was the first time that my father really would have known i felt that way. so i was really, really stressed out about that. >> how hard is it for you to be here today? >> very. >> do you want to believe that your dad is responsible for your mother's disappearance? >> do i want to believe it? >> yes. >> no. >> let's assume that your dad, in fact, did kill your mom. would you want to see him punished for it? >> no. not particularly.

>> prosecutor lewin knew the ambivalence of these family members did not help his case. >> but in the end, my job isn't to make sure that the family members get what they want. my job is to make sure that, you know, carol's killer is held responsible. >> but was mike a killer? his attorney, kevin don hugh. >> i think the police are just wrong. >> no forforensics, no witnesse not even a booed pep the defense might have stopped right there. instead, they decided to gamble. mike was a nice guy, the jury should see that. and if the detail his been a little different each time he was asked to tell the story, here was his chance to straighten it all out for the jury. how odd then, that mike, under oath now, amended his story just a little again. >> like, when he added the detail that carol was in the bathtub when she said something mean to him. >> she said you make my skin

crawl. >> also slightly different, the way he discovered she was gone. >> i opened the front door and went out and the garage door was up and the car was gone. >> in earlier versions didn't mike say he heard the garage door go up and saw taillights as carol drove away? why had his story changed again? >> what's the deal with that? >> did you hear the garage door? >> i don't think so. >> why do you think that now? what has jogged your memory? >> because i think over the years i thought about this night so many times, and i just, you know, i've seen that car back out of that driveway many, many times when she was leaving so i think i just thoughty r petedly in my mind that that's what i thought happened. i saw the car. i can see it right now. >> he never thought for a moment, he said, it would be the last time he'd see his wife. >> i thought maybe she had gone out that night, went dancing and

staid the night with a friend. >> what did happen to her? mike insisted he simply didn't know. >> did you have anything to do with killing her? >> no. >> did you have anything to do with her disappearance? >> no. other than i didn't sign the papers and made her upset, but that's it. >> successful testimony, maybe. but now the down side. he'd have to answer questions from john lewin. >> do you lie sometimes? >> no. >> you never lie? >> i wouldn't say never. a white lie. who knows? >> have you ever lied about something serious that wasn't a white lie in your life? >> no. >> in your entire life you've never lied once about anything that wasn't a white lie. >> not that i can remember. >> in fact, mike had a hard time remembering a lot of things prosecutor lewin asked about. >> i don't remember. >> i don't remember going to bed. >> i don't remember saying that. i don't know. >> but how on earth, asked

lewin, could he not remember the last time he saw his wife. >> would you agree that that would be one of the most significant events, details of your entire life? >> yes, but i -- it doesn't mean i have to remember it. >> lewin wasn't buying it. >> isn't it true, mr. lubahn, that the last place that carol lived her last breath was taken in that bathtub when you murdered her? why are you looking at the judge? >> i'm waiting for him to correct you, no. i didn't murder her. in the bathtub? >> if you had murdered her, you would tell us. >> i would have admitted it. >> you would have admitted it? >> yes. >> do you think that statement is believable? >> i think so. >> i'm done.

>> of course, believeability was a question for the jury to decide and decide they did. though as you'll see, that wasn't the end of the story. not by a mile. coming up, a son overcome with emotion. a final push for the truth. >> please, for your family, for your kids, tell us what happened, and then a final, fateful twist. >> it just is the ultimate answer. this is it. >> and coming up next friday on "dateline." did you kill travis alexander? >> yes, i did. >> inside the steamy trial that's riveted the country. >> i hate to put it this way, but i felt a little bit used. >> jodi arias charged with killing her lover she says in self-defense. >> he attacked me and i defended myself. >> these are the stories you haven't heard. >> this was not a kind, gentle way to die.

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♪ ♪ ♪ let's call the jurors out. >> there are few things in american life as dramatic as waiting with consequence as the moment the jury, verdict in hand, files into a courtroom, have they been persuaded that mike killed carol or even that she was dead? mike's family held its collective breath. so did the prosecutor and the police. >> you know, you don't know what to expect. >> and now here was mike's fate. >> we, the jury, in the above-entitled action find the defendant michael clark lubahn

senior guilty of the -- >> guilty of second-degree murder. mike lubahn was going prison and longtime detective jim wallace felt surrounded by a very unfamiliar reaction. >> i've had cases before where you get done, you know, and you walk out of the courtroom and the family throws their arms around you and they're so grateful, right? that's not this case. >> i was just very surprised that the jury would convict him on such little evidence, and i don't think any of us are happy to see mike go to jail. >> and you still believe mike is a nice guy, believable guy? >> yes. >> what gail and the rest of the family wanted most were some answers. >> it's not so much that i want mike to pay for what he did. i just want to know what happened to my cyster. >> and at the sentencing hearing in december 2012, mike's own son echoed those sentiments. >> guilt or innocence aside,

i've never wanted my fa other to go to prison, i only ask that if he knows anything to please let me know. and then mike, jr., made a heartbreaking plea to the court. >> he's been a good father and a good person. if he's sent to prison today i want him to know that i'm going to miss our time together. it will be hard to see the world change without him. i'm okay. i humbly stand before the court to request leniency for his sentence. thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> after that, well, then the strange tale of the much-loved convicted killer took quite a remarkable turn. it happened that very day in court. prosecutor lewin. >> i'm asking right now as we sit here, mr. lubahn will have a chance, please, for your family, for your kids, just let it go. tell us what happened. >> can we have a moment? >> the judge granted a recess so mike could speak with his

attorney privately. did he actually have something to confess? he returned a few minutes later. >> and we're asking to continue the sentencing. >> time to think, the judge pushed back sentencing by a month. >> my hope was that he would tell us what happened, that he would tell us what he did with carol and that he would be honest about both. >> for almost four weeks they waited until january 7, 2013. all eyes were on mike lubahn as he entered the courtroom. and then shifted as one to prosecutor lubahn that that very morning mike revealed to him the secret he'd been keeping almost 32 years and so now lewin did the talking and mike, for once, said not a word. >> all of the information about them fighting about the selling of the house he says that was truthful. that occurred.

>> then carol stormed out and it might have blown over as arguments do, but she came back 1:30 a.m. and said the one thing that would not blow over. not ever. she told him that she was going to be taking somebody else, another man, to her sister terri's upcoming wedding. he said he was very upset. >> she tried to comfort him then, he said. she said don't worry. you'll find somebody else, et cetera. >> and that was the last thing carol lubahn ever said. he didn't want to hear it and he said that he pushed her. she fell and hit her head on a heavy end table in the living room. he said that she didn't bleed, but he knew instantly that she was dead. detectives hooked lubahn up to a polygraph machine. how much of this was true? >> after the polygraph, the test was done and he confronts him

and says you didn't pass. now the defendant changes his story and he says, okay, i punched her in the head and i punched her hard, but he said only one time. then he told lewin what he did with carol's body. after he killed her he put her in the garage behind some carpet. he took her car the next morning to the red onion parking lot, dumped it there, at some point she was placed in the trunk of mr. lubahn's vehicle. >> and then he said he took her to the ocean, put her on a raft and paddled out to sea and dropped her down. a cinder block tied to her body. it was a shock, of course, a big shock. for so long the family or most of it believed mike, and now in this very public way they finally knew that carol was dead and he, their sweet mike, killed her.

but the whole truth, was it actually out there somewhere? and so on that cold and foggy january day mike, surrounded by cops and lawyers floated out into the mist to find carol, find whatever was left. >> if they find the cinder block in the ocean after the search, they find that that will give me half of the closure i need. >> she didn't get it because after the boat ride, mike admitted his ocean tale was one more lie. and perhaps it was finally for the sake of his son, the son who never abandoned him that he finally passed a polygraph and led investigators to the place he now says mike's mother has been all these many years. and some time in the coming months the police will try to uncover her remains and so give her family a chance to say good-bye. >> i don't really know why